Sputnik V Vaccine approved in India

  • The expert panel of country's drug regulator on Monday approved the use of Russia's Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine. 
  • The decision comes after Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI)'s Subject Expert Committee (SEC) met to take up Sputnik V application for Emergency Use Authorization in India. 
  • This is the third Covid vaccine to be available in India. 
  • The first two are Serum Institute of India's locally-made Oxford Covid-19 vaccine 'Covishield' and Bharat Biotech's indigenously manufactured Covaxin.
SPUTNIK V
  • This is a vaccine that uses two different human common cold viruses (adenovirus) that have been modified so that the gene causing the cold infection is removed and instead replaced with a code to make SARS-CoV-2’s ‘spike protein’.
  • The human adenoviruses then act as a vehicle to transport this code to the cells when a person is vaccinated, so that the body can develop an immune response in the form of antibodies to protect it in the event the real virus tries to infect. 
  • The vaccine, named after the first Soviet space satellite, was developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya National Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology.
  • Sputnik V has demonstrated an efficacy rate of 91.6% in the interim analysis of phase 3 clinical trial, which included data on 19,866 volunteers in Russia.

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